Limited flight delays, cancellations at PBIA, Fort Lauderdale as July 4 weekend travel begins
WEST PALM BEACH — Travelers headed to airports such as Palm Beach International and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood this Fourth of July weekend are being advised to check their flight schedules.
Airports nationwide are reporting numerous delays and cancellations amid staffing shortages and high passenger demand for flights as people begin to travel again after the COVID-19 shutdowns.
As of 2 p.m. Friday, 2,894 flights within, into or out of the United States were delayed and 313 had been canceled, according to the website flightaware.com.
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At Palm Beach International Airport, 25 flights traveling into or out of the airport were delayed as of 11:30 a.m. Friday. One flight was canceled.
At Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, 79 departing and arriving flights were delayed and four were canceled.
Among domestic carriers, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines had the most cancelations so far, though each carrier has canceled only about 1% of its schedule for the day, or about 50 flights each (not including those operated by their regional affiliates), USA TODAY said.
The Federal Aviation Administration also warned that weekend flights could get more difficult as summer storms threaten to cause problems in large swathes of the country. Anyone planning to travel by air should check with their airlines before leaving their homes for the airport.
The start to the summer travel season over the Memorial Day weekend also saw thousands of canceled flights across the country,
“It’s going to be a very highly stressed system,” Robert W. Mann Jr., an airline industry analyst, told The Palm Beach Post in June. “The industry already admits that it has barely enough resources to fulfill published and pre-sold flights.”
Delta Air Lines announced in May it would cut 100 flights between July and August, while JetBlue reduced its summer schedule by at least 10%.
Julius Whigham II is a criminal justice and public safety reporter for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at jwhigham@pbpost.com and follow him on Twitter at @JuliusWhigham. Help support our work: Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Cancelled flights at PBIA, Fort Lauderdale as July 4th weekend starts
